Rev. Al Sharpton voices support for sending violent criminals to jail, not rehab, after NYPD cop Randolph Holder's death

BY GINGER ADAMS OTIS, LAURA BULT

The chorus of voices railing that a suspected cop killer should have been behind bars — and not free to kill — now includes the Rev. Al Sharpton.

“We cannot have a society where we are not protected,” Sharpton said Saturday at the National Action Network’s Harlem headquarters.

Sharpton used the meeting to join the call for a new law that would allow judges to send violent people like Officer Randolph Holder’s accused killer, Tyrone Howard, to prison rather than offering bail or drug treatment programs.

Howard, 30, was charged with murder after Holder was shot to death in East Harlem on Tuesday.

After his remarks, Sharpton visited the Harlem post at Public Service Area 5 where 33-year-old Holder worked. He laid a wreath of flowers.

Later in the day, several people protesting police killings of civilians were arrested in Times Square, NYPD officials said. The exact count was not immediately released.

Sharpton’s comments came a day after Mayor de Blasio called for similar reforms to how New York State judges offer bail and alternatives to incarceration to defendants. De Blasio said that New York is one of only three states that don’t allow judges to consider public safety when determining bail.

“Randolph Holder should unite the city around sane policing and sane judicial process,” Sharpton said.

Sharpton has been one of the NYPD’s biggest critics, especially in response to police brutality. “Extremists on both sides cannot dominate the conversation of sanity for all of us,” he said.